The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Our Crappy Race → 24 Hours of ECR--is it too soon to talk about it?
Now that TWS has come and gone for us Texas-based teams, the daunting 24-hour race at ECR is looming. Who is in?
Honestly, we have no idea how we're gonna make our car last 24 hours. Lately, we can't even figure out how to survive a 15-hour event...
We are bringing the Mustang and Miata... And take out a second mortgage for Carbotec RP2's on both.
IN.
We are bringing our RX7.
Also, we also plan on entering either the RX2 or an even crappier whip that we are in negotiations to obtain.
Never too soon. If the gods smile, we will take 2 cars. The Alamo Tercel, and either the Maser Biturbo or a Mitsubishi StaLion (ROR)
What are yall doing for illumination?
Never too soon. If the gods smile, we will take 2 cars. The Alamo Tercel, and either the Maser Biturbo or a Mitsubishi StaLion (ROR)
What are yall doing for illumination?
The glow of brake rotors will light your path.
With a group of crazies like this, there will doubtless be a full moon out. That will light our path.
That and some H4's.
bringing both benz, oh the agony!
in, but in what, not certain (yet)
Does Lemons have any official rules on lighting?
Remember.... Wink Mirrors suck in the night!
We are in - the Jeep will be there!
We are in - the Jeep will be there!
Thats the ticket Steve, lets scare them all away, I like you're thinking!!! LOL
Does Lemons have any official rules on lighting?
IIRC, the Reno rules just said the lights must be properly aimed and not dazzling. Seems like there was a couple of cars with a bazillion LED's that I wanted to dazzle right up their backside. Suuuper annoying especially when it was wet and the light reflected off everything. I made up a removeable lightbar that had a trailer light connector for fast disconnect and 2 gigantic old Hellas I found. Each one had it's own circuit with relay/ground/fuses/switch for duplication. We were worried about all the load on the alternator so we only ran one at a time. We got H4 housings for the stock lights and used street legal H4 blbs in them. At the last minute I got some cheap driving lights that we splayed out to show the corner apexes. The H4 housings and cheap driving lights didn't work all that well, Next time I will replace the headlights and splayed driving lights with Hella 500's. It plain sucks to not be able to see where you are going. I missed the entry to the esses twice and had zero idea I had until I was in the dirt at full throttle starting to drift.
We will have the ECU issue fixed and be there in the stang.
Never too soon. If the gods smile, we will take 2 cars. The Alamo Tercel, and either the Maser Biturbo or a Mitsubishi StaLion (ROR)
What are yall doing for illumination?
http://forums.24hoursoflemons.com/viewtopic.php?id=9969
The husband has some hella good lighting skillz. Pun intended.
That's great info. Thanks!
Does Lemons have any official rules on lighting?
In addition to the point cheseroo made about the emphasis on "properly aimed and not dazzling," for every night Lemons I've done they've mandated that lights could be no more than a few (3? 6? don't recall) inches above the hood line. In other words it's OK to mount lights on the hood but mounting anything on the roof is verboten.
Does Lemons have any official rules on lighting?
The rules for lights are usually posted on the event page for that particular race, but it's not on the ECR Page yet. The rules for the 24-hour Goin' for Broken 2011 and the overnight Cain't Get Bayou 2011 were identical, so I'd guess we'll probably have a lighting ruleset pretty similar to those:
MANDATORY LIGHTS
This is a night race on an unlighted track. Each team must provide its own illumination. While good-quality, properly aimed OE headlight systems are generally up to this task, aftermarket driving and/or fog lights are also legal. DON'T OVERTHINK IT: A small number of high-quality, properly mounted, correctly aimed headlights or driving lights is much more effective than a large number of crappy add-ons, or overpowered projector lights, or fancy-pants spots.• During daylight hours, forward lights may be removed if desired.
• Lights,mounts, and associated switches and wires are considered safety items and do NOT count toward the $500 build total.
• From dusk to dawn, all cars must have at least two working headlights,one working taillight, and one working brake light. Multi-filament combination tail/brake lights are acceptable.
• The center of all lights must be no higher than 6 inches above the car's hoodline; roof-mounted lights are not allowed.
• There is no limit on the total number of lights. However, lights must not be unduly dazzling or distracting to others.
• All lights must be properly aimed. Cars with mis-aimed lights may be black-flagged at any time. For good aiming advice, check out these sites:
• http://www.coolbulbs.com/HID-VISUAL-HEA … CEDURE.pdf
• http://www.automedia.com/Aiming_Headlig … 010801ha/1
• Teams whose lights are deemed overly dazzling, insufficiently bright, badly aimed, or problematic in any other way may be black-flagged at any time.
• All lights must be present and working during tech inspection.
One thing I've found out the hard way is that the Hella 700 series lights have an ABS plastic housing and hold the lens and bulb in with just one tiny screw/cleat combination at the bottom. If you give it much rough treatment (like an off or a shunt), that metal screw will strip out of the housing very easily, and then the important parts all fall out and bang around until you fix them. The Hella 4000 series are much stouter -- and are priced accordingly 
Wonder if there will be a practice day at the track friday or sat morning?
Wonder if there will be a practice day at the track friday or sat morning?
We'd be happy to put on a T&T on Friday!
Baron wrote:Wonder if there will be a practice day at the track friday or sat morning?
We'd be happy to put on a T&T on Friday!
OUTSTANDING!
LindaLou wrote:Baron wrote:Wonder if there will be a practice day at the track friday or sat morning?
We'd be happy to put on a T&T on Friday!
OUTSTANDING!
As usual, we'll plan to be there and then leave Houston entirely too late to make it...
On the lights - yeah - if you bring ultra Dazzler LED's prepare to be given no quarter on passing. THOSE REALLY SUCK for OTHER DRIVERS. (yeah - when you come up on someone, the driver in front cannot SEE ANYTHING and will hence become pretty erratic)
~Also, HID "Conversions" (True HID) DO NOT WORK. the HID bulb glow is not the same geometry as the original Filament. This means that the carefully crafted and designed reflector and lens setup in your OEM lamp case are not set up for the change, and all you get is diffuse GLAREY light. This would be great to aim backwards at someone with LED's - but not much else.
Other than that - the rules as above are pretty true - Start with the OEM's, add higher-wattage bulbs if you can (some bulb types can source 80/100w vs the stock 55/60w) then add driving lights (not spots) aimed cross-ways to illuminate corners.
I also recommend adding/keeping your side-marker lights (or adding theme lights) so that if you are sideways someone has a better chance of seeing you w/o tee-boning you.
On-topic - looks like the Scrubbing Bubble VW will be there.
Linda, I'll gladly watch a T&T, and probably pay for one or two sessions,
but I think I'd rather have some sort of "passenger-car track-acquaintance-no-passing-high-speed-tour" group for a handful of people that haven't been there added in - say $25/car later in the day - maybe 45 minutes? Basically a double-yellow only session for newbies... Anyone have thoughts on this?
Lighting? The biggest hole in out lighting at the Can't Get Bayou 24 (in the Metro) was apex lighting.
Straight forward lighting was OK, but we couldn't see the corner for shit, our lights just pointed straight ahead into the woods, and was worthless.
We had lights that crossed beams in front, but even they weren't enough to see the corners.
Test test and test some more until you find what works! (Then post it here so we can steal your ideas in the future!)
On the lights - yeah - if you bring ultra Dazzler LED's prepare to be given no quarter on passing. THOSE REALLY SUCK for OTHER DRIVERS. (yeah - when you come up on someone, the driver in front cannot SEE ANYTHING and will hence become pretty erratic)
~Also, HID "Conversions" (True HID) DO NOT WORK. the HID bulb glow is not the same geometry as the original Filament. This means that the carefully crafted and designed reflector and lens setup in your OEM lamp case are not set up for the change, and all you get is diffuse GLAREY light. This would be great to aim backwards at someone with LED's - but not much else.
Other than that - the rules as above are pretty true - Start with the OEM's, add higher-wattage bulbs if you can (some bulb types can source 80/100w vs the stock 55/60w) then add driving lights (not spots) aimed cross-ways to illuminate corners.
I also recommend adding/keeping your side-marker lights (or adding theme lights) so that if you are sideways someone has a better chance of seeing you w/o tee-boning you.
On-topic - looks like the Scrubbing Bubble VW will be there.
Linda, I'll gladly watch a T&T, and probably pay for one or two sessions,
but I think I'd rather have some sort of "passenger-car track-acquaintance-no-passing-high-speed-tour" group for a handful of people that haven't been there added in - say $25/car later in the day - maybe 45 minutes? Basically a double-yellow only session for newbies... Anyone have thoughts on this?
Yeah, yellow only woulnd help much for those newbs to be comfortable getting on the trace at full speed for the first time at night. We have a few coming that have never driven our cars or this track, so I would rather them know wheer to brake before they are out on the track in that dark, with 60 other cars.
The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Our Crappy Race → 24 Hours of ECR--is it too soon to talk about it?